never the same

Tag Archives: Oscars

um. Maybe I’ve just not paid attention all these years, but what is up with the black ghetto in the Oscar audience?

All the black people in the audience [except Morgan Freeman] are either in the back or on the side.

And how come every time a black person wins, the camera pans to the other [6?] black people in the audience?

I don’t wanna give the impression the awards completely suck, though. Neil Patrick Harris opened the show with a great Broadway number reminiscent of a show from the 40s or 50s. The stage is beautifully decorated and looks lovely. And other things I liked?

– Up, winning for best animated film and best score

good dress

– the dresses this year. I think they’ve all outdone themselves this year – never have I seen so many beuatiful dresses at the Oscars. They almost always have a bunch of awful dresses and only 5 good ones. This year it’s good one after good one after good one after good one. Although it does seem that there are a lot of stairs for the ladies this year.

– Star Trek, winning for best make up

– the ‘street’ danced interpretation of the nominated musical scores – maybe the best performance I’ve ever seen at the Oscars.

– seeing Bradley Cooper. I have a really big crush on him. but not with his hair slicked back.

– the fact that they played Georgia On My Mind when Tyler Perry came out

great dress

A few things I didn’t?

– the sappy turn that the lead actor/actress introduction of nominations has taken in the last few years.

neck down. Her hair was very – done – maybe a little too much – but still a beauty for the first nominee I see on the red carpet.

I love looking at the dresses for the Academy Awards. There usually seem to be more hits than misses – unlike some others awards…

Penelope Cruz chose a fabulous vintage Pierre Balmain. She saw the dress 8 years ago, and went back to the shop and found the *same* dress. Serendipity.

Marisa Tomei is wearing a Versace that just arrived this morning. The bodice is a bit plain, but grows into an elaborate array of pleats that spin outward into a train. The color is muted, so the overall effect is not as stunning as it might be on someone with a bit more of a tan.

Angelina’s got a beautiful black dress on, hopefully I won’t get to see any more of it.

But big congrats go out to Meryl Streep for her 15th nomination. I’ve actually been hoping she wins this year, too.

Taraji P. Henson makes me want that Benjamin Button movie to win an award. Her dress is awesome, and she looks lovely. But I am totally not into that movie.

Eh. Penelope Cruz wins Best Supporting Actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And for best dress. Interesting way to present the award – 5 previous winners list the nominees and last year’s winner opens the envelope.

Tina Fey and Steve Martin made a quick quip on Scientology on the way to presenting the award for Best Original Screenplay. Milk wins. Dustin Lance Black is promising equal rights for gays. Wow. I didn’t know he could do that.

I am totally not into Tina Fey’s dress. It almost looks like it’s made of foil. I love the way she and Steve read the writing, though. It’s awesome.

Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. I really want to see this movie, but I live in Podunk. So. No access.

I wish I could zoom in on my tv screen. I’d love to zoom in on Jennifer Aniston’s hair.

Seriously? Horton Hears a Who was last year? Wow. It seems so much longer ago. I really want Wall-E to win. Woo!!!! Yay! Wall-E wins for Best Animation Feature Film. Ok. I’m happy.

Best Animated Short Film: La Maison en Petits Cubes by Kunio Kato. Poor guy doesn’t know much English, so he bows out with a bit of Mr. Roboto.

SJP’s got a great dress, but it looks like her dress might not come up enough. To the top.

Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I honestly don’t care about this. Yay for DVR!

Best Costume Design: The Duchess. [and again, I press fast forward.]

Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Good for them.

Here’s some young’uns. Robert Pattinson and Amanda Seyfried present a romantic movie montage. Wow. I think the one tiny clip from Meet the Browns kind of spotlighted how few faces of color were present in the montage. The only other ones were from Slumdog Millionaire and they played several clips from that [because of all the nominations.

Best Cinematography: presented by Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller. Natalie’s dress is *very* pink. Ben Stiller then pulls a McCain and starts wandering aimlessly around the stage. Slumdog Millionaire wins.

Jessica Biel has got a funky dress by Prada. _

James Franco and shoot – what’s his name? oh yeah – Seth Rogan present Best Live Action Short after the comedy montage. I wanted New Boy to win, but it ends up to be Spielzeugland (Toyland) that wins.

Five previous winners for Best Supporting Actor present for this year’s winner. And Alan Arkin gets screwed by a teleprompter that lists PSM’s name as Seymour Philip Hoffman. I’m still reeling at Robert Downey, Jr.’s nomination for work in blackface. Slyly described by Cuba Gooding, Jr. As predicted, Heath Ledger wins for the creepiest Joker ever. Totally deserved. His family accepts.

A documentary montage leads in to Bill Maher presenting Best Documentary Feature for Man on Wire. For which one of the recipients balances the Oscar on his chin. Best Documentary Short Film goes to Smile Pinki by Megan Mylan.

The action montage – cars, cars, and more cars. And fire.

Will Smith presents Best Visual Effects to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Blah. All for turning Brad Pitt into a “garden gnome”. Best Sound Editing to The Dark Knight. I actually thought that one might’ve should’ve gone to Wall-E. Best Sound Mixing to Slumdog Millionaire. Best Film Editing to Slumdog Millionaire. [I really want to see this movie. Hope it comes to my town now that it’s won so much.]

Ok, back to the awards. Eddie Murphy presents the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Jerry Lewis. The telethon has raised over 2 billion dollars over the last 43 years. Wow. Jerry’s speech seems to be on the teleprompter. Interesting. Still, nice – to the point, a bit humorous, well done.

Nominated scores are played by the Oscar orchestra, and quite beautiful.

Alicia Keys does not look like herself to me. Her hair is a different color or something. But she and Zac Efron present Best Original Score to Slumdog Millionaire. Best Original Song nominees perform: 2 songs from Slumdog, one from Wall-E. O Saya was by MIA but she just had a baby, so they’re letting her stay seated. Down to Earth is performed by John Legend and an accompanying choir. Nice to know John Legend speaks Prada. That brown suit is sweet. Then Slumdog comes back with Jai Ho. Then the songs all come together to be beautiful. Awesome performances. Jai Ho wins Best Original Song.

Liam Neeson and Frieda Pinto present Best Foreign Language Film to Japan for Departures.

Queen Latifah intros the goodbye tribute montage with I’ll Be Seeing You. I think there are only 3 awards left. Oops – nope.

Reese Witherspoon presents for Best Director wearing a black and blue creation that I can’t make up my mind about. I think I’d love it if there weren’t these odd black straps seeming to come out of nowhere. They seem superfluous. Danny Boyle receives best director for Slumdog. Now, there’re only 3 left.

So far, Slumdog is the big winner, with 6 awards. Ben Button is next with 3.

Best Actress is presented by 5 other winners – Shirley Maclaine to Anne Hathaway, Marianne Cotillard to Kate Winslet, Halle Berry to Melissa Leo, Sophia Loren to Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman to Angelina Jolie. Kate Winslet wins for The Reader. She looks great in YSL and calls for her father to give a whistle so she knows where her family is in the audience. He does, and she is steadied enough to make her speech.

Best Actor is presented by 5 previous winners – Michael Douglas to Frank Langella, Robert DeNiro to Sean Penn, Adrien Brody to Richard Jenkins, Anthony Hopkins to Brad Pitt, Sir Ben Kingsley to Mickey Rourke. Sean Penn wins for Milk. So I’m getting ready for the speech. I know it’s coming. I almost thought Rourke was gonna win. The speech is actually not bad. Rourke gets a shout out.

Then my DVR cut off. Thankfully I was caught up, so I just went live. But doggone – I made the recording go an extra 15 min. Oh well – it always goes long.

Didn’t get a chance to see Keri Russell’s dress in detail – from the back it looked nice. But the song from ‘August Rush’ was awesome! I need to see that. Interestingly [or not] enough, a friend of mine with a similar name pointed me to an article interviewing Jamal Joseph [the guy who wrote the song for August Rush]. Apparently he’s a professor at Columbia and just wrote a book about Tupac.

Tho I haven’t seen any of the animated shorts, I feel strangely gratified that “Peter and the Wolf” won. I love that story. I grew up listening to Sterling Holloway narrate the story.

Ewww. Tilda Swinton won best supporting actress. I don’t think she was prepared. She doesn’t seem to have done her hair, and she’s wearing a black sack. Meanwhile – Ruby Dee looked positively hot! I haven’t seen the movies – so I’m just basing this stuff on looks – it’s Hollywood, right?

Jessica Alba’s purple dress was very becoming…

I laughed out loud at something Jon Stewart said! I didn’t think it’d happen. His comment to Jack Nicholson was hilarious. That’s 1.

me = not into the song from ‘Once’. I’m thinking I wouldn’t so much be into the movie, either.

So as Jack Nicholson is introducing the Best Picture montage, did anyone else think he looked like he was scanning the room for more hot chicks? Meanwhile, I’ve seen 20 out of 79 movies that have won for Best Picture. Pretty awesome since I’ll watch almost anything but Oscar nominated movies…

Dude. There’s some 98-yr-old who’s still doing production design. Wow. That’s variety – he did ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘The Birds’, and ‘Private Benjamin’ [and many others]. But Nicole Kidman’s dress was boring.

Ahhh, Penelope Cruz’s dress was much more dramatic. Very nice.

Woo! Another song from ‘Enchanted’ – but that dude totally…mucked it up.

Ok. I’m disgusted. I woulda been happy with any other song winning. ANY other song than this. [the one from ‘Once’]

And what’s the deal with the camera and Laura Linney? Is she taking each win personally?

ooooh, Cameron Diaz! Great Dress! yes – with a capitol D. Light pink with drama and flair – but not that crazy couture stuff – drama and flair within the realm of wearability.

Hillary Swank’s dress: black – and somewhat reminiscent of Halle Berry’s dress the year she won. Not in a copy-cat way, more of a silent tribute. Nice though.

Amy Adams black dress? Um, no. The top was kinda ugga-mugga.

Just added ‘War Dance to my Netflix queue. [I love spelling that word…queueueueueueueueue. Ok, so it’s late and I’m getting a lil punch-drunk.]

Yay! ‘Juno’ won something!

You go Helen Mirren. That dress makes you look like a real queen. Scarlet with silver and jeweled sleeves. Best of the night, I think. [And Johnny Depp is as hot as Daniel Day Lewis is decidedly disturbing]

wow. Denzel bald. Is it permanent? or for a movie? or just preference?

PS – the choices for movies this year, IMO, were sorely lacking. if going to/watching movies is about escapism, then these folks aren’t giving us much to escape TO.

So that was the Oscars, according to the shyness. Join us again next year, when (hopefully) we’ll have more festive choices, and more worthy comedies.